Adelaide Festival Centre

To the north of Parliament House is the Adelaide Festival Centre (opened 1977), a modern cultural center with a tent-like roof structure slightly reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House. Here in alternate years is held the highly regarded Adelaide Arts Festival (theater, opera, ballet, exhibitions, readings by writers, lectures). It contains a large theater (2000 seats), a smaller one (600 seats) which is the home of the South Australia Theatre Company, the experimental Space Theatre (380 seats) and an amphitheater (800 seats) for concerts and recitals. The sculptural decoration of the South Plaza was the work of the German sculptor Otto Herbert Hajek.